Anger

For many years my frustration turned into anger and deep, burning resentment. I wanted to live a life that pleased God and I knew seething rage wasn't a fruit of the Spirit. For my college and early marriage years, I didn't even know I was angry. Once someone said to me in the dorm elevator: You always have such a pleasant look on your face.

Years later I did not understand why I was angry, why I would have these times of total frustration. I did not know how to get the anger out of my life. It certainly wasn't Christian to feel so much anger. No, I wasn't constantly angry. I loved and enjoyed my children deeply, had close friends and got along with almost everyone. But I was angry and only getting angrier. I thought godly people were so attuned to God that they didn't feel angry. What was wrong with me?

What did my anger look like? I can remember some of the incidents in which my anger came out in ways that surprised me. Once I was at the point of tears, but I could not cry. I knew I "needed" to cry, but I could not cry. I was too angry to cry. A few tears would come out and then stop. I remember dropping to my knees next to my bed thinking the tears would come out but they did not. So I took my handkerchief and ripped it.

Another time I was sitting at my desk in a similar state of mind. I got so angry I stabbed my cartridge pen into my wooden desk. Destroyed the pen and made a hole in the desk. I directed my anger at things. I still have a dent in my skillet which I made with a spatula.

Then there was the frustration on the tennis courts. Someone mentioned how they had seen a clip on TV of different atheletes yelling. When I would miss my shot, I'd make loud aggravated yells. Only a couple times did I throw my racquet, and when I did, it bounced into the next court.

I am NOT PROUD of this. I only am trying illustrate.

I have heard it said "The Bible speaks against anger." I think we think that anger itself is sin. We study and analyze Paul's advice 'Be angry and sin not'. So to feel anger itself must not be sin, right? My own paraphrase of that might be feel your anger, but don't let it control what you do and push you to sin. My own writing I would have added after that would have been: figure out what you are angry about, talk to the person you are angry at and get help from an expert if you can't deal with it yourself.

When I read psychology books, I don't remember learning anything about anger. When I went to a psychgologist, I am sure he asked me : have you communicated how you feel (angry) to the person involved? I would have answered: No, I can't do that, it would hurt their feelings.


I heard the phrase "acting out". That is when you are angry about something, but you don't express your honest anger about it to the person involved for whatever reason. The anger builds up inside you until it finally bursts out somewhere illogical. Example: If I were mad at my husband, I would slam cupboard doors in the kitchen. I would never just tell him : I felt angry when you did that, or when you said that.

I can remember asking various people about anger, speakers who would come to us in West Africa, mature believers at conferences, any counselors or psychologist types.

When I went to a Pastoral counselor, he once said : anger is usually the emotion that is closest to the surface and underneath it there is usually hurt or fear. I think from my observation this is true. I think that is why in Western culture, men are allowed to be angry. They aren't supposed to show sadness or fear because it makes them look weak. Fear or sadness isn't manly. But we expect them to get mad and cuss.

For ME, looking back on those years of frustration, I was hurt. But I did not know how to stop getting hurt, so I was angry. And I could not get rid of my anger, because I did not have the wisdom or strength to talk to the person who made me angry. There were times I could not cry I was so angry, and it made me even angrier that I could not release tears. Pitiful.

I still get frustrated at times, but the flow of my life is more even now. What makes the difference? Answer to my prayers? Yes. Antidepressants? Yes. Having learned to live with grief and having learned that all I have is this moment? Yes. Good counselors? Yes. Being told in church that anger is a sin? Nope.

There are lots of proverbs that talk about the angry man. He's the bad guy. We don't want to be like him. If we are like him, we are not pleasing God. But what if you are an angry man (or woman) and you can't seem to grow in this area? Maybe you need to learn new communication skills with someone who is hurting you. Maybe you need a counselor. Maybe you need medication. (By the way, I don't advocate running out and getting drugs as your first and only option, but I believe some of us need them in combination with good Bible teaching and mature friends and counseling and coaching.)

I don't even think I would say that the feeling of anger is a sin. I would interpret the proverbs and other passages which condemn the angry man as a person who consistently acts out feelings of anger. He habitually does not restrain himself. I don't think it's a sin to feel angry when you slam your hand in the car door. What you do about what you feel is what may be sin. Like cussing out and smacking the child who accidentally closed the door. I think when the Bible seems to talk of anger as sin, it is talking about angry actions. Everyone feels anger sometimes. I think some of the problem is semantics. And I think it will be helpful to those of us who teach the word of God to others to be careful with our words. I think it will be helpful to think about how the hearer understands the words when one says: anger is a sin.

In my early Christian circles, we used to hear "you can't keep a bird from landing on your head, but you can keep it from building a nest in your hair."

So what do you do when you feel anger? Grit your teeth and press down on the lid of your "temper" so that it can't come out? That leads to acting out.

I think of emotions like nerve endings in our physical bodies. They inform the brain of whether there is something good or something harmful out there. If you touch the stove, your nerve endings tell you to pull away. Emotions inform our brain about what is going on with other people. If someone is nice to you, you are drawn to them. You feel like, or love, or affection. You want to be with them. If someone hurts you, you want to pull back. Or you want to hurt them back. But because we are human beings, we cannot withdraw from our relationships, especially with family members. (Well, I guess you could, but that's not usually the best choice.)

When I was angry what was it that was wrong? Someone was hurting me. Life was hard and I did not know how to protect myself from being hurt for one thing. I misunderstood the Bible's teaching about anger, for another thing. I did not obey the Bible's teaching that says: don't let the sun go down while you are still angry. I knew I was not obeying this, but I did not know how to obey it. You can't just stop feeling angry when you are angry. It takes a lot of talking and it takes time....at least it takes time if you have let that root of bitterness grow into a bit fat taproot!

I want to end this post, but it keeps going on and on. I would really like people to dialog with me on this. I have more to say, but I want to know whether what I have said so far makes sense, or whether it's murky.

I think it's an important topic and I am interested in others' viewpoints on this. Am I the only one who thinks about this? Am I way off base scripturally?